Thursday, July 9, 2015

Catch-Up Post: O!

We STILL have no internet – this has
literally been nearly two months of trying to get ANYBODY to service
us. We finally caved and had to get satellite internet, which is
coming next Tuesday. Hopefully this gives me a
little bit of time online...

There's
been a ton to write about O, and no time to write about it! I'll give
the cliff notes version of it, seeing as it can be condensed pretty
well.

In
May, it obviously rained A LOT. 35 trillion gallons of rainwater +
moving house = no ability or time to work the mare. So, she hung out
with Pax and P (and later, Darby), and ate food, and was merry. It
was good times for all, except for me, who was wanting to get back in
the box seat pretty badly.

The
beginning of June saw the sun come back out, and when it was dry
enough I decided it was high time to put the lady back to work. I
long lined her down the road on her very first day back, and she was
quite good, considering the fact that she hadn't been away from 'her'
baby in a good solid month. However, once we got back home, she
absolutely lost her marbles when she saw them again. I wasn't
untacking her fast enough in her mind, and she set back twice, once
breaking her lead rope and running off, and then once again, when she
nearly pulled the metal tie rail clear out of the ground. (Still have
to reinforce that with concrete... safe to say we won't be using that
anytime soon.) She's not one to set back, so clearly she was REALLY
upset about the other mares being 20 feet away from her on the other
side of the fence. I got tired of her antics and decided to tie her
to the trailer and let her stand there for a few minutes and calm
down. She did not calm down, and continued to escalate her frantic
behavior. The mares were literally on the other side of the fence,
and she couldn't handle being *that* far away from them. It
culminated with several very violent setting backs, ones that were so
crazy that I couldn't get close enough to her to pull her lead rope
free – on the final one, she pulled back so hard that she
ricocheted herself forward like a slingshot, smashed herself face
first into the trailer, and dented an incisor. She stopped dead when
it happened, a little trickle of blood coming from the corner of her
lip that she had also bitten in the process. She was quite fine - the
tooth is fine, the lip is fine – and she was absolutely immobile.
Well, there you go I guess...! I bathed her (she had significantly
lathered), and put her back out, where she promptly went to the mares
at the haybags and went to eating.

Two
days later, I went to feed the mares breakfast, and noticed a very
suspicious swelling on her right hind. It looked bang on for a
classic tendon/tendon sheath injury, and I freaked out.

Whyyyyyyy

She
was totally sound, thankfully, and she had a small scrape on the
inside of the leg – she is the queen of paper skin, so I felt that
it very well could be related to that. She was a bit tender to
palpation though, which was concerning. Since I am Queen Tendon, I
leapt into action, and started her up on a strict regiment of cold
hosing, bute, poultice, and wrapping. There wasn't any way to contain
or rest her – especially not if I wanted her to stay quiet with the
other mares wandering around – so I just left her out with them.
(Note to self: I am so super screwed if I ever need to stall rest
this mare.)

The
vet came out a few days later to look at P's eye, and I had them look
at the leg too. Their US machine in the field isn't very good, so I
had her palpate, flex, and jog, and asked her what she thought. O was
sound, sound, sound, even with flexions. The swelling had reduced
itself about 95% in those three days, and while I could see a tiny
bit of filling still (just because I know the leg), the vet was
impressed with the amount of swelling I had taken out of it. Well
yeah, I'm Queen Tendon! I have a tragic amount of experience getting
swelling out of limbs.

Better but not normal yet

The vet and I agreed that since there was never any lameness, because the swelling was nearly gone, and there was a scrape right where the swelling was, it probably was not ever a tendon - but to just keep an eye on it and bring it in for imaging if I felt it was warrented. As
per the vet, we decided to keep resting her for another two weeks,
and I went off on vacation to California for one of those weeks. I
weaned her off her wraps and she stayed naked the entire time I was
gone, and when I returned the leg was still totally normal and cold.
Nice!

Back
to work she went at the end of June. She had been off for nearly two
months at this point, which wasn't a bad thing really – but it
meant she had lost some fitness and I had to start back a few steps.
She's been lunging a couple times a week, and has been back for two
drives, one down the road and one in my pasture. She was absolutely
superb for both, managing to only partially act like a crazed idiot
when we returned home. No signs of issues with that leg - it's been completely normal.

It
poured like crazy here yesterday, so everything is slop right now
again (boooo). She lunged on Tuesday, had yesterday off, and may go
for a drive this afternoon, depending on if things dry a bit. Our
calendar is a bit sparce until September, so I plan on bringing her
back to full work gradually and carefully this month, and then being
back in full work next month in preparation for the fall show season.
We missed several shows in May/June because of the weather and her
leg problem!

Calendar:

August
15th: Horseman's Market Day – not a show day, but a human fun times
day. They sell tons of carriages, harnesses, and other equipment and
tack!

September
12th-13th: TCA Carriage Classic – this is the pleasure show that we
were entered in this past May, but that got flooded out. They
rescheduled it for September!

September
26th: NTW Playday

October
3rd: WHOA Drive – maybe! It sounds like a fun playday type drive
but I'm not familiar with it.

October
10th-11th: Let's Have Fun in Texas! HDT – a brand new local HDT!

October
25th: NTW Playday

November
7-8th: Black Star Farm CDE – this is our big local one. It's an
actual CDE, although they have an HDT that runs in conjunction with
it.

November
21st: Crossroads Charity Open Horse Show – just another fun local
show with carriage classes!

Rainbow Bridge Tribute

Pax Grows Up!

O-Ren

Pangea

Pax

Dylan

Uma & Lendri

Sriracha

Zazu

Big Frank

About Me

For as long as I can remember, my life has revolved around horses. I've been riding since the age of 7, and doing dressage and eventing since the age of 15. My first gelding was a little black Trakehner named Quincy who had had EPM at some point; he was the best friend an emotional teenager could have ever wanted. He died of a horrible colic in 2004. My second gelding was a dark bay clunker of a Trakehner named Metro; he was the best schoolmaster and friend I ever could have asked for, and he trucked my butt around my first real x-country courses, and brought me my first really fancy ribbons. Due to a whole slew of problems, we euthanized him in 2006. My third horse was the quirky and opinionated Gogo, my first youngster and my first mare. She taught me endless amounts of patience, the importance of praise and soft hands, how to graciously accept mass amounts of blue ribbons one moment and how to graciously accept a dose of humble butt-whooped pie the next. After a long and downhill rehab for compounded leg injuries, we let her go in October of 2011. What's next for me? Follow along and find out!